spanish language shift reversal

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Spanish Language Shift Reversal on theUS-Mexico Border and the Extended ThirdSpace

Margarita Hidalgo Department of Spanish and Portuguese, San Diego State University, San Diego,CA 92182-7703, USA

Language shift reversal (LSR) is defined as a change in progress affecting Spanishlanguage use alongtheUS-Mexicoborder and some otherextendedareasof the countryduring the past fewdecades.LSR iscontrastedwithreversing language shift (RLS), theresult of official language policy and planning. Samples of LSR in San Diego Countyare presented in connection with reactions towards bilingual education in a spaceloaded with ambivalence. In this scenario,a reflectionon interculturalcommunicationis offered in the light of the international trade agreement with Mexico.

At present the US-Mexico border is inhabited by millions of speakers ofEnglish andSpanish, two post-imperial languages of impeccable credentials andliterary traditions.Although little attention has been given to language contact inthis important region dividing the First World from the Third World, it iswell-established that this border is unique, for it is the only one where a fullydeveloped industrialised society and military and economic superpower isfound in direct juxtaposition with an emergent nation. The worlds largest

border is ideal to examine sociolinguistic phenomena (e.g. language variation, bilingualism, diglossia, language maintenance and language shift, language atti-tudes, etc.) resulting from intense, multidirectional, and unequal social contacts.In this milieu, the reversal of language shift is a plausible occurrence, given therapid growth of the Spanish-speaking origin population (SSOP) of the area.

Language shift reversal (LSR) is a concept advanced herein and exemplified

with data from San Diego County (SDC), the third largest city of the stateof Cali-fornia. This reversal in progress has been described in other border communities(cf. Hidalgo, 1995; Jaramillo, 1995)which have gained a considerable proportionof Spanish speakers over the past four decades. Some of these communities (e.g.,El Paso, Tucson, San Diego) suffered significant population losses as a result ofthe Mexico-US War (18461848). The most conspicuous consequence of LSR isthe use of Spanish in public domains which were formerly exclusive to English.The small surveys conducted in SDC offer provocative data that are interpretedin the light of the advancements of the sociology of language, in general, andreversing language shift, in particular. In addition, this paper explores thenotionof an extended quasi-reversal in interior US communities, some of which had inthe past century a very small SSOP. Finally, the official and unofficial reactionstothe unsuspected and growing presence of Spanish speakers is examined inconnection with California Proposition 227and the Bilingual Education Act of 1994.In the US local, regional, and national scenario, a reflection on international andintercultural communication is deemed necessary to close this contribution.1470-8477/01/01 0057-19 $16.00/0 2001 M. Hidalgo

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The model of LSR proposed for SDC serves to advance generalisations abouttrends and patterns that are being observed in border and interior communitiesof an extensive region known as the United States Southwest (primarily Califor-nia, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and southern Colorado), the vast areaexplored by the Spanish expeditionaries since the mid-sixteenth century. In theUnited States Southwest (USSW), European explorers did not find exoticcivilisa-tions or important mineralsites. The absence of wealth and nativepopulation ledto the establishment of missions and to the practice of a pastoral lifestyle thatended with the North American explorations of the West and the occupation ofthe predominantly Spanish-speaking territory. Until the mid-nineteenthcentury, Spanish was the only European language spoken alongside a fewAmerindian languages in the scarcely populated towns and villages of theUSSW. The southwestern states belonged to the Spanish Empire until 1821,

when Mexico consummated its independence from Spain. Between 1821 and1848, they were governed by the Mexican Republic. The war between Mexicoand the United States (18461848) was more than a mere battle over the enviableterritory;for this reason, it soonbecame a permanent conflict of race, religion andcustoms (Weber, 1973: 96). In May of 1848, the US Senate ratified the Treaty ofGuadalupe-Hidalgo and settled for the third portion of the Mexican territorywhich had the fewest Mexicans (Weber, 1973: 100). The history of languageconflict and languages in competition since the loss of one-half of the Mexicanterritory to the United Stateshas not been studied yet. It is however assumedthatSpanish language loss and shift have been continuous since then.

The Spanish-speaking population of the vast area acquired from Mexico between 1845 and 1854 was about 75,000, according to most estimates:60,000 Nuevo Mexicanos, 7,500 Californios, about the same number ofTexanos,and less than 1,000Mexicans living around the presidios of south-ern Arizona. These people constituted a unique new ethnic block in theUnited States ()the fact that theywere guaranteed all the rightsof the citi-zens did not prevent them from becoming foreigners in their native land.(Weber, 1973: 140141)

The new culture of the border region partly resulted from the encounter between the Anglo and Iberian worlds and their abysmal differences of values,attitudes, behaviours, and languages. The construction of Anglo-Americansstereotypes of Mexican-Americans did not come into being in the border region

but in the US interior (Weber, 1979/1989: 300). Originating as early as 1822, theywere later exacerbated through increasing numbers of travellers, merchants andsettlers who entered northernmost Mexico after 1821. The stereotype was useduntil recently to justify efforts to Americanize Mexicans in the USSW and tocapitalise on the exploitation and poor treatment of Mexican and Mexi-can-American workers in the fields and factories of the border region (Weber,1979/1989: 303).

The residents of Mexican descent who remained in the region in the late nine-teenth century and those who came from Mexico in the first half of the twentiethcentury were consistently oriented towards the English language and US main-stream values, given the pressures exerted by the mainstream culture. For about

a hundred years, Spanish language loss and language shift have been occurring

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at different rates. At the same time, Spanish mother tongue maintenance of theforeign-born population has been recorded since the early twentieth century,when the number of speakers was merely 258,131,a figure thatgrew to 556,111 in1920, reached 743,286 in 1930, and declined precipitously to 428,360 in 1940(Fishman etal., 1984:132)due tomassive deportationsduring the Depression era.Since the 1960s, however, the progressive recovery of the SSOP and the notice-able use of the Spanish language have been observed in both the border regionand the USSW. The fact that the Spanish language has been gaining speakersevery decade for the past four decades (19602000) is clearly indicated in thefigures of the official US Census (see Table 1). Nonetheless, according to unoffi-cial observers, the estimates are normally conservative and inaccurate, for thosewho live in the ethnic communities claim that many individuals of Span-ish-speaking origin are either uncounted or undercounted.

The notion of a LSR in the border region was first advanced by both Hidalgo(1995) and Jaramillo (1995)in reference to El Paso (Texas), Tucson (Arizona), and

San Diego (California). I compared the degree of LSR in the three border citiesand proposed that El Paso had a higher index of vitality, because it has movedforward in the process of reversal and continues to be more advanced than eitherTucson or San Diego. Moreover, I stated that the early accommodation of theSpanish-speaking San Diegans to the conditions imposed by English-speakingnewcomers had led to the submergence of subsequent generations of Span-ish-Mexican descent (Hidalgo, 1995: 42). I also asserted that, in contrast withother borders, the process of reversal in San Diego would be longer and harder.In spite of these difficulties, San Diego is slowly immersing itself in the culturaland sociolinguistic dynamics of the USSW and is acquiring some of the traitscharacteristicof the USSW region. For this reason, SDC is proposed as a modelofparsimonious LSR. If this reversal continues to advance, it can be predicted thatother communities (borders, USSW communities, and extended communities ofthe US interior) will move, too, in the same direction.

At present, the Anglo/Mexican population ratio varies considerably fromcommunity to community across the USSW area. By the same token, the saliencyof Spanish language and ethnicity varies according to traditions established by

Spanish Language Shift Reversal 59

Table 1 Growth of the Spanish-speaking origin population of the United States(19401999)

Year Total Population SSOP Population1940 132,165,129 1,861,4001960 179,325,671 3,334,9601970 203,210,158 7,823,5831980 226,542,199 14,608,673

1990 248,709,873 20,425,6461999 281,421,906 31,337,122

Sources: 19401970 data derived from J.A. Fishman et al. (1984) The Rise and Fall of the Ethnic Revival(p. 132); 19801999 data derived from the US Bureau of the Census (19811982; 1992, 1999) Censusof the Population, Washington, DC.


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both groups since the mid-19th century, when the whole USSW region wasentirely monolingual in Spanish and Mexican mono-ethnic. The arrival ofAnglo-Americans changed the profile of the border and USSW communitiesgiving rise to Spanish/English contact for the first generations of Anglos andMexicans. It is assumed that the second generation of Anglo-Americans was

bilingual, and that the early Mexican-Anglo contacts in most communities wasdistinguished by elite intermarriages. As Anglo-American groups increased innumber of individuals and the control of the communities was almost exclu-sively in the hands of speakers of English, English became the general languageof communicationthroughout the twentieth century; so strong was the influenceof English and the wave of Anglicisation that Mexican-Americans turned out to

be extremely anglicised and acculturated. This is the noticeable trend in thepre-and post-World War II decades (Hidalgo, 1995: 36).

The current conflicts of the border region may differ from those experienced ahundred years ago.Because of the profound demographic transformationsof thepast 40 years, the borderregion is no longer the periphery where the demarcationof two disparate nation-states was imposed. This is not to imply that all thequalms about the area are forgone, but only that the demographic, industrial,commercial, and agricultural activities are better integrated into the economicand political spheres of both countries. It is important to add, nonetheless, thatthe border region, or the taboo region, as I labelled it (Hidalgo, 1995) has always

been dependent on not one but on two hegemonic systems: Mexico and theUnited States. The conglomerate of people of Mexican descent inhabiting themarked area have become a unique regional social system where family struc-ture, culture, social interaction and factors of production were fused across the

boundary. The most important by-product has been the bicultural transfrontierinterdependent metropolis.

The Extension of the Border or the Third Space

The extended border is at present more undetermined and unspecified thanthe border region per se. However, the extended border is found beyond theUSSW, as revealed by the official estimates of the US Bureau of the Census (July,1999).The ranking by Hispanic population shows that nine states (five of them inthe USSW) comprise a total of 26,199,843 people of the total of 31,183,515recorded in 1999. Moreover, the second 17 states ranked in 1999 have a SSOPranging from almost 400,000 to slightly more than 100,000. The combined popu-lation of these 17 states reaches 3,961,642individuals of SSOP (see Appendix A).These glaring figures may be sufficient to claim that LSR is an ongoing change

that can be observed in border communities per se, interior communities of theUSSW, and even those that are outside the USSW region. The LSR scenario at thenationallevel assumesthe active participationof millions of individuals of Span-ish-speaking origin, the majority of whom reside in large urban centres of thecountry. In almost all of these centres, Spanish is currently heard, spoken, andeven written in both private and public domains. The specific contexts of NewYork, Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, Hartford or Las Vegas in which Spanish isused may be singled out as the extended border or third space. Because theUS-Mexico border is incessantly moving northward, migration from Mexico



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begins to reach areas formerly unpopulated by individuals of Mexican descentand others from the Caribbean region, and Central and South America. Individ-uals from south of the border carry with them two major cultural and closelyrelated components: language and ethnicity. Language (Spanish) and ethnicity(Mexican for those communities of high Mexican density or Hispanic for mixedcommunities) are phenomena that stand out in most places as being anomalousor disruptive. The saliency of Spanish language and ethnicity increases ordecreases according to various external factors: greater distance from Mexico orfrom the country of origin of the speakers, ratio of inhabitants of Anglo andHispanic descent, date or primacy of settlements of the SSOP, and economicdevelopment. The conflictive nature of social contacts in communities inhabited

by Spanish-speaking people is historically linked to the peripheral nature andmarkedness of the Spanish-speaking world, which is mostly distinguished by

underdevelopment and racial mixture. The extended border has acquired someof the features of the US-Mexico border, for language and ethnicity have becomesalient characteristics that help maintain boundaries and limits; the degree ofsaliency and separateness in the extended border varies from community tocommunity. In all the US cities in which there are speakers of Spanish-speakingorigin, however, the marked language is Spanish and the marked ethnicity isMexican, Hispanic or Latino.

Description of Societal BilingualismIn the borderregion, the USSW and other interior communities in which Span-

ish speakers have been established for at least two generations, bilingualism can be experienced in a continuum that begins with Spanish monolingualism in thefirst generation; Spanish/English bilingualism is usually the norm for thesecondgeneration, and at times even for the third generation, whereas Englishmonolingualism is attained in the third or fourth generations, as illustrated inFigure 1 (Hidalgo, 1993c: 14). The bilingual continuum can be observed primar-ily in urban settings of any size (e.g., San Antonio, Austin, Houston (Texas),Tucson,Phoenix (Arizona), Albuquerque (New Mexico), LosAngeles, Santa Ana(California), but also in small cities, towns, and even rural areaswhere the shift toEnglish is normally predictable. In the rural settings and communities adjacentto the Mexican border, the shift to English may occur until the fourth generation;also, select individuals or groups of individuals may experience a shift reversalin their adult life. Finally, communities that are considerably distant from thecountry of ancestry or those which do not experience the replenishment of theSSOP on an intergenerational basis may undergo a language shift in the second

generation.The US-Mexico border can be considered an area of stable bilingualism, giventhat there exist sufficient numbers of speakers of both languages so as toconstantly foster language contact, diglossia, and bilingualism, which are notexclusive to the border region per se, but have been present in other USSWcommunities for several generations. At times newcomers fail to adjust to thenew USSW culture because they feel they are, or they are indeed, rejected bymembers of the majority culture. Others assume a diametrically opposite atti-tude and adjust promptly: their rapid assimilation is simultaneous to the aban-



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donment of many traits of the original culture, including language. Between thetwo extremes there can be found groups and individuals who are both bilingualandbicultural to varying degrees; somemaintain the two languages andcultures

separate; others are bilingual but mono-cultural in the USSW culture; still othersareacquainted with the two cultures butdo not blend them or practice noticeable

behaviour shifts. The vast majority of bilinguals of the USSW and some of theinterior communities, however, participate actively in styles of communicationsuch as lexical borrowings from English, structural interference from Englishinto Spanish, and Spanish/English code-switching, inasmuch as these speechstyles have become an integral part of the linguistic repertoire of the bilingualcommunities. Needless to say, newcomers are often surprised, annoyed, andeven shocked to hear the abundant borrowing, interference, and inter- andintra-sentential code-switching. The latter speech style has become thus far thetypicalpractice amongbilinguals inhabiting both ruralandurban settings.Thesestyles of communication are the result of language contact and intense andunregulated bilingualism, which sometimes lead to a language breakdown withall-Spanish or all-English monolingual speakers, but particularly with monolin-gual Mexican or Latin American nationals, who in spite of their eagerness tolearn English, claim to reject the Hispanic bilingual of the USSW or other interiorcommunities. In the face of the disparagement of bilingual modes and speech

styles, when they move north, Mexican and other Latin American nationals endup acquiring precisely those styles of communicationof the US Hispanics inhab-iting the USSW or the intensely bilingual cities of the country(e.g. Miami or NewYork). The model described is applicable, too, to the extended border, and canbeobserved in Chicago, Denver, or any other place in which there can be foundsufficient bilinguals interacting with one another.

Language Shift Reversal

As the US-Mexico border becomes more central in the nationalagenda of boththe United States and Mexico, the marked language gains space in differentdomains. The growing use of Spanish in the border proper, the USSW, and theextended border can be defined as LSR, a conspicuous phenomenon ensuingover the past 40 years in the most populated urban areas of the country. Thisreversal is not the result of an induced change, an intentional conscious occur-rence stemming from a social or political agenda (cf. Fishman, 1991). SpanishLSR is precisely the opposite of reversing language shift (RLS); the latter isderived from the collective efforts of individuals, groups of individuals or insti-


Monolingual Bilingual Monolingual

Spanish Spanish & English English

First generation Second and thirdgenerations

Third and fourthgenerations

Figure 1 Bilingual continuum in USSW communities


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tutions acting to defend, protect or regulate the use of endangered languages.Such endeavours have been successful in different parts of the world (e.g.Quebec, Catalonia, the Basque country and Israel, among others). In these areas,the reversal of the disadvantageous conditions surrounding the threatenedlanguage usually a minority language is the desired outcome of RLS, whilethe restoration of conditions favourable to the neglected language is the directconsequence of sociolinguistic activism or militancy.

In contrast, the Spanish LSR observed in the United States does not meet theprerequisites needed to categorise this change in progress as RLS, inasmuch asRLS is by definition an active enterprise supported, funded, or strengthened bylocal, regional, or nationalinstitutions.The quintessential caseof such successfulpractice is found in Quebec. Spanish LSR, as observed in the continental UnitedStates, is not the result of an induced change and is neither supported nor

financed by agencies or institutions.LSR is rather the unintentional repercussionof immigration, population growth, consumer demands for goods and servicesin the ancestrallanguage, and the ready response to these demands on the partofproviders of goods and services. Against the definition of LSR, scholars mayargue that not all the individuals who report Hispanic ancestry are fluent Span-ish speakers (e.g. Fishman & Miln, 1983; Fishman et al., 1984; Sol, 1985; Bills etal., 1995). While this assumption is incontrovertible, it is also indisputable thatvarying proportions of foreign-born and even US-born individuals do use Span-ish at home and other domains. Thus, in spite of the fact that some individuals orgroups of individuals shift to English in the course of their lifetime, the sheernumbers of activespeakers is sufficient to maintain the language withhigh ratiosof vitality. And whereas it is also accurate that Spanish has been mostly used inthe domestic sphere, it is nowadays more certain that Spanish is ubiquitous inthose areas where there are plenty of speakers who need to communicate withone another for different purposes (e.g. personal and business) and throughdifferent means (e.g. printed and electronic media). The growing number ofspeakers who use Spanish outside the home domain are the sine qua non condi-

tions for LSR.In so far as this scheme is both discontinuous and spontaneous, in the eyes ofout-group members, LSR is less desirable than RLS. Whereas RLS is more closelyregulated andcontrolledby individuals and institutions, LSR is unregulated andunrestricted. The stages followed by RLS (see Appendix B) are, to an extent,connected and consecutive. In contrast, the stages of LSR may be disconnected,random, and at times unpredictable (Hidalgo, 1998).

The RLS typology proposed by Fishman (1991: 81) implies an active socialpolicy to interfere withor intervene to counteractthe predictable course of eventsbecause that course would result in consequences that are consensually viewedas undesirable. The value positions justifying RLS status planning have to dowith a positive popular sentiment and support; with the protection of majorityrights; with the perceived benefit of stable bilingualism for outsiders and insid-ers and the concomitant need for internal and external boundaries. Finally, thepositiveattitudes of the collectivity lead to the selectionof priorities and efforts toreverse language shift in function of culturally relevant choices that ultimatelypromote intergenerational language use and reasonable chances of success.

The RLS model is complete, consistent and coherent; in the United States,



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however, the main process, i.e. active reversing, does not flow easily througheach of the stages proposed in the model. Scholars are sceptical about the poten-tial of Spanish to reach the most important stages of the proposed scale (espe-cially 1 and 2), primarily because they perceive the major damage inflicted uponSpanish-speaking communities in Stages 6 through 4 (see Appendix B). Never-theless, the constant flow of immigrants from Spanish language background hasmade such reversal a reality. This new reality must be looked into under a differ-ent light. We need to resort to the traditionally used quantitativemodels but alsohave to appraise qualitative aspects of Spanish-speaking communities that have

been ignored so far. Students of language maintenance and shift primarilyobserve the attrition rates throughout the decades, and whereas it is observedthat language shift, too, is a continuous process, both language maintenance andLSR coexist at least in some communities. In the USSW, we observe that Spanish

begins to move back into prominent use. Not only the absolute and relativenumbers of the speakers increase every five or ten years, but the number ofpublic and private services increase as well. The US Spanish-speaking communi-ties canbelong in Stage 8 like the Brule speakers of Lousiana (cf. Holloway, 1997).Others seem to fluctuate unsteadily between Stages 6 and 2, like El Paso orLaredo, Texas (cf. Hidalgo, 1995). In addition, in thosecommunities where Span-ish stands out, a discordant trend is observed, for the endeavours to reverselanguage shift are neither fully planned nor fully official. In some cases they areunplanned and unofficial.

Sociolinguistic Models of Language Shift ReversalThe dynamics of language maintenance and vitality, language shift and LSR

have been addressed by Jaramillo (1995) with respect to what the author identi-fied as a quasi-border. Standing alone as a model of macrosociolinguistic vari-ables that either inhibit or enhance Spanish language maintenance, the study ofTucson (Arizona) highlights the contributory factors impinging on the initialstages of a LSR: size and density of the Mexican-American population, relativesocioeconomic subordination and distance from the mainstream; market valueand status of Spanish in the wider community; and presence of Spanish in thepublic sector, a phenomenon that may signal a reversed diglossia in progress.The passive legitimisation of Spanish in the quasi-border is validated due to itsgrowing use in public spheres (e.g. religion, ethnic organisations, media and thelike).

The numerous communities where the presence of Mexican-Americans isapparent have not been researched yet, but there is sufficient information on the

patterns of language use and language attitudes (cf. Hidalgo, 1993b). In thisrespect, the community studied by Jaramillo (1995) is a hybrid, inasmuch as ithas features of true borders, as defined by Hidalgo (1993b and 1995) and south-western communities. In addition to the model proposed for Tucson, the datagathered in the 1990sshows that LSR is occurring in the wealthiest and one of thetrendiest US borders. The case of SDC is introduced herein in the light of newdevelopments in the international arena such as the North American Free TradeAgreement (NAFTA), which was identified as a potential contributory factor inthe revitalisation of Spanish in Arizona (Jaramillo, 1995: 84).



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As compared to other USSW cities, the SSOP of SDC has grown slowly; theprogression of loss and recovery between 1850 and 1999 is shown in Table 2. In1860, the SSOP was only 28%; in 1870, the total was 41%, whereas 40% wasAnglo-American; in 1880, the former population declined to 8.5%. The virtualdisappearance of the SSOP seemed to have occurred at the beginning of thetwentieth century, when it merely reached between 3.6% and 5%. However,since 1960 it has increased steadily (from 6.3% to 8.2% in 1970); the most signifi-cant gains can be observed in 1980and 1990witha total of 14.8and 20.4%,respec-tively. Other sources clearly indicate that between 1996 and 2000, the SSOPreached a quarter of the total population of the county. Finally, according to the1990census, 72.4%of the SSOP over five years claim tospeak Spanish athome. Insum, at present more than one-half million people of Spanish-speaking originreside in San Diego; of these, the vast majority (or 87%) are of Mexican descent

(US Bureau of the Census, 1990;Hidalgo, 1995;San Diego Associationof Govern-ments, 1997, 1999, 2000).

The proportion of SSOP speakers in SDC (by jurisdiction) shows that thecommunities adjacent to Mexico have a higher density of Spanish speakers, towit: National City, 49.6%; Chula Vista, 37.3%; Imperial Beach, 28.3%. Northerncommunities follow southern areas in the proportion of Spanish-speakingpeople: San Marcos, 27.5%; Vista, 24.8%; Escondido, 23.4%; Oceanside, 22.6%.Central areas such as San Diego proper and Lemon Grove follow with 20.7 and19.9%, respectively. Other ethnic languages with significant numbers of speak-ers in SDC areTagalog, Vietnamese, Chinese, German, Japanese, French and Ital-ian. The total number of speakers of the 23 ethnic languages spoken in 1990 was207,643.But by far the most spoken ethnic language of SDC is Spanish with 64%of all the speakers of other-than-English languages (San Diego Association of

Governments, 1997).


Table 2 The total and SSOP of San Diego County (18501999)

Year Total population SSOP % SSOP1850 798 -1860 4,324 1,211 28.01880 8,618 733 8.51900 35,090 1,263 3.61930 209,659 10,483 5.01960 556,808 35,079 6.31970 1,357,854 112,820 8.21980 1,861.846 275,177 14.81990 2,498,016 510,781 20.41996 2,690,255 619,638 23.01997 2,724,437 642,772 23.61998 2,794,785 670,761 24.01999 2,911,468 722,377 25.0

Sources: 1850-1990 data derived from State of California, Department of Finance (1998)19961999 date derived from San Diego Association of Governments (1997, 1999, 2000) San Diego.


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Private and Public Domains of InteractionThe hypothesis proposing that use of Spanish in public domains signals a

trend of reversed diglossia and therefore passive acceptance of Spanish (cf. Jaramillo, 1995) is tested in SDC among various groups of individuals, agencies,and private and public domains.

(1) The results of a small survey conducted in 19911992 (cf. Hidalgo, 1993a)show the patterns of Spanish language use and attitudes of 158 bilingualstudents from all over the county (mostly between 11 and 20 years of age).These Subjects (Ss) displayed positive attitudes toward Spanish in theinstrumental, integrative, and personal/developmental dimensions. Thepatterns of intergenerational language choice are similar to those reportedin other communities where bilingualism prevails. In the family, Spanish isused with parents and grandparents,whereas English is used with siblings.In the community, English is more prevalent than Spanish, but Spanishstands on an almost equal footing with English in more interpersonal (e.g.friends and acquaintances) and societal domains (e.g. spoken and printedmedia). Ss claimed to prefer tobe educated in the two languages and towantthe same for their children. In addition, the responses to self-rated profi-ciency in Spanish are likewise balanced on the scale from 0 to 5 (0 being noneand 5 being native). The Ss ranked themselves as advanced (although notnative superior) speakers of the two languages. Finally, when choosing the

subjunctive mood in context-bound sentences, the Ss selected the correctresponse in a little over half of the cases.

(2) With the population growth and increased Spanish use, services are eitherdemanded or offered by public or private agencies. In various cities, wehave observed the increment of Spanish speakers both as the regular clien-tele and the service crew. Thus far, we have surveyed San Ysidro, ChulaVista, San Diego, Del Mar and Encinitas. In the shopping centres, hotels,restaurants,hospitals, and medical centres of the above mentioned cities, Ss

have reported an observed increase of services in Spanish in the past 15, 20or 25 years. In the citiesadjacent to Mexico (San Ysidro andChula Vista), thereported increment is about 50%. In cities that are distant from the border(e.g. Del Mar and Encinitas) and the city of San Diego proper, the reportedincrease is from 20 to 25%. 1

(3) The most dramatic change has occurred in the domain of religion, whichwasall-Spanish until the mid-19thcentury. After the Mexico-US War, only afew Catholic churches held mass in Spanish. In 1992, we found 25 parishesoffering services in Spanish. By 1996,we counted 98 Catholic churches in thecounty. Of these, 47 offered numerous services in Spanish and 12 of them inother foreign languages. The demand for mass in Spanish is due to the factthat 27.1% of all registered Catholics are of Mexican or Hispanic ancestry.The proportion of Anglo-American Catholics is 59.7%. In addition, wefound that eight out of ten churches offered three massesor more inSpanishper week, but all ten churches offered catechism in Spanish for all agegroups. One church offered mass with mariachi music(typical band from thestate of Jalisco) in both English and Spanish. The churches had one or two

bilingual priests who were in charge of all the Spanish services. Nine of the



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churches served in funerals, weddings, confirmation and Easter Sundaymass. The farther south we surveyed the churches, the more services werereported. Another small survey conducted in 1997among 30 subjects resid-ing in San Ysidro and Chula Vista helped us establish the hypothesis of aclose connection between language, ethnicity and religion. It seems thatthosesubjects who attend mass in Spanish are not only fluent in Spanish buthave a stronger Mexican or Hispanic identity. The churches from southerncommunities offered four masses every Sunday, one every Saturday, andone daily in 1997. Since 1991 there has been an increment of 90% of religiousservices in Spanish and 100% increment in the Spanish masses attended bythe public because they are offered in Spanish. Some of the parishionerscome from across the border, a factor that enhances both the quantity andquality of Spanish used in the Catholicchurch of the southern cities of SDC.

Finally, in 1991 there were 150 Spanish speakers who received the HolyCommunion in Spanish. By 1996, there were 500 Spanish speakers initiatedin the Holy Communion, which represents an increase of 300%.

(4) Spanish speakers also engage in mundane activities such as disco dancing,movies, plays, and consumption of Spanish music. Surveyed in 1997, 50freshmen and sophomore students at San Diego State University, reportedthat in their junior high and/or high school years, they used to listen to popmusic and rock-and-roll music in English. As they begin to interact withother Hispanic students when they enter college, a reversal seems to takeplace. In addition, Ss reported that between 18 and 23 years of age, they

begin to consume not only Spanish rock-and-roll music (from both the USand Latin America), but also traditional folk music ( rancheras), traditionaland contemporary ballads ( boleros romnticos), contemporary vernacular(quebradita, salsa), and traditional regional music ( merengue, cumbia).Moreover, since the early 1990s Spanish rock-and-roll music is beingrecorded in San Diego, because music companies perceive the potential ofthe youth market. About 50% of the Hispanic population of the county is

below 24 years of age.(5) The next drastic change is observed in the courts and the legal system ingeneral, which used English exclusively between 1860 and 1960. Theservices of translators and interpreters in the local courts have increasedsince the early 1960s. In the San Diego Municipal Court we found out thatthere was only one interpreter in 1961; in 1995, there were 12. In 1964 in theNorth CountyMunicipal Court, there wasalso only one interpreter; in 1995,there were eight.

(6) Spanish book collections in the public libraries have grown with thedemands over the last 40 years. The oldest collection of Spanish booksstarted in 1960.By 1981, the total combined number of Spanish volumes forthe library systems in Chula Vista, Coronado, Escondido, San Diego Cityand San Diego County was 39,815. In 1996, the number increased to 137,028in the City of San Diego Library, which has a total of 2,452,000volumes. The

branches with the mostvolumes are San Ysidro(20%), LoganHeights (17%),Chula Vista (12%) and Otay Mesa (10%).

(7) The use of Spanish in education is less conspicuous. In elementary schools

we found transitionalbilingual programmes (e.g. Logan Elementary School



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with an enrolment of 1040, 88.4% of whom are bilingual). Most subjects aretaught in English, but Language Arts and Writing are taught in Spanish. Inthe immersion biliterate model (e.g. Hall District Elementary School), Span-ish is taught three days per week. Bilingual immersion is based on theconcept that a second language is best acquired in a natural setting. In apre-school setting children are taught in their native language. In theLanguage Immersion Model (e.g. Horton Elementary School), children aretaught entirely in Spanish (or French). A very recent development in SDC isthe promotion of a programme of English/Spanish biliteracy from Kthrough 12 (Magee, 1999aand b), which is in consonance with the BilingualEducation Act of 1994 (cf. Crawford, 1997b).

(8) In the past ten years, San Diego State University and several two-yearcolleges (known as junior community colleges) have implemented inde-

pendent tracks or mini-programmes of Spanish for US Hispanics.The newprogrammes focus on traditional grammar, reading (with an emphasis onthe Latin American classics), and writing. Speakers of local and/or regionaldialects are exposed to the written supraregional and/or internationalvari-ety of New World Spanish, but the respect and appreciation for US Spanishare promoted (cf. Hidalgo, 1996). This option is based on the restorationapproach, whose purpose is to recondition and repair the structures oflanguages which have been negatively affected by disadvantageoussocietalfactors.(Several mini-tracksandprogrammesof Spanish for heritage speak-ers are now available in dozens of US colleges and universities). Thepurpose of the restoration approach is to lead speakers of regional dialectsand local vernaculars in the direction of accepted national or internationalstandards. This is one of the several strategies of bilingual education imple-mented with the intention of reversing language shift (Hidalgo, 1999).

Public Reactions to Hispanic Population GrowthSome of the most boisterous reactions towards the growing numbers of Span-

ish-speaking people have been raised in the past two decades. First, the oppo-nents to bilingualism spearheaded a successful campaign for official-Englishlegislation. The U.S. English-Only movement measures were adopted bytwenty-threestates.Second, in 1996,a group of citizens residing in southern Cali-fornia promoted a statewide ballot initiative known as Proposition 227 requiringthat all children in public schools be taught only in English. The measure passedoverwhelmingly on 2 June 1998, and virtually outlawed bilingual education inCalifornia (Crawford, 1997a). Although the tenets of these movements are not

readily implemented or enforced, the public support for them only shows theprevailing sentiment to invalidate or discourage the use of Spanish in publicdomains. The advocates of the U.S. English-Only movement and Proposition 227are normally better informed about the general trends and/or findings of theU.S. and state governments, which routinely release statements on immigrationor educational policies. A few years before Proposition 227 was formulated, thepercentage change of the population of California which claimed to speak Span-ish between 1970 and 1990 was well known. In the eyes of some people, thefollowing figures were alarming: The 2,150,600 individuals who claimed to



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speak Spanish in 1970 (or 10.8% of the totalpopulation) increased to 3,132,690(or18.4% of the total) in 1980, and to 5,478,712 (or 22% of the total) in 1990 (State ofCalifornia, Department of Finance, 1998).

Despite the antagonism of some sectors of the US society, the official positionof the federal government seems to be the subtle endorsement of continuedimmigrationfrom Spanish-speaking countries and the multilingual education ofheritage speakers of any language andnational background. The BilingualEduca-tion Act of 1994(BEA) is clearly supportive of societalmultilingualism and multi-culturalism, on the one hand, and academic bilingualism, on the other(Crawford, 1997b). Operating under the principle of globalisation, recentlyimplemented programmes of bilingual education known as two-way or dualimmersion are giving an opportunity to both heritage speakers and nativespeakers of English to be exposed to each others language and culture. The

programs are known for improving social relations, cross-cultural understand-ing, and academic achievement (Christian, 1994). The two-way immersionprogrammes and the BEA of 1994are somehow related to the reactions to LSR inthe USSW, given that the dual immersion programmes are indirectly supportiveof language maintenance, biliteracy, and cross-cultural understanding.

In contrast, the official endorsement of immigration patterns is revealed in theforecasts about the massive growth of the SSOP of the United States. A statistical

brief released by the Bureau of the Census in 1995 asserted that Therapidgrowthof the Hispanic population in the early 1990s was a continuation of the trend ofthe previous 20 years. The projected increase to 31 million people in the year2000 was accurate,whereas the projections of 63 million in 2030and 88 million in2050 remain to be seen. According to this report, by the mid-twenty-first century,nearly one in four Americansmaybe Hispanic (US Bureau of the Census, 1995).

Redefining the Roles of Languages (and Cultures) in the GlobalCommunity

In future decades, US educators, scholars and politicians will be confrontedwith the latent controversial problems that have been partially addressed in thetwentieth century. The promotion of English in a global community represents adual agenda: the first part of the agenda is the crystalisation of the Anglophonesupremacy after World War II; the second one may endorse the use of otherlanguages; some of them are the domesticlanguagesspoken in the United States,which often are the sameones that are used as national languages in the countriesof origin of the immigrants.

In the United States the position of the Spanish-speaking people is that of a

minority, both quantitatively and qualitatively. The presence of other minoritygroups does not help to divert the attentionof the majority from the conspicuous-ness of Spanish-speaking individuals. On the contrary, in recent times the Span-ish-speaking masses continue being the object of derision which is now a part ofthe collective consciousness of the Anglophone majority. The question to beraised at this juncture is whether the international trade agreement with Mexicowill help reverse the deleterious conditions described above or whether it willexacerbate them to the point of friction and strife. In theory, a trade agreementshouldminimise conflict and promoteharmony. If so, in the United States, Span-



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ish should undergo a profound re-evaluation which ideally will be conducive tochange its users relationship with it (Hidalgo, 1994). LSR is potentially condu-cive to a reversal of the symbolic relations of power and of the hierarchy of thevalues placed on the competing languages. The legitimisation of the markedlanguage will lead speakers to perceive the new political and economic advan-tages. In an ideal world, international trade enhances positive attitudes towardsmulticulturalism and multicultural education for the speakers involved in theparternship. The assessmentof the issue, however, does not necessarily lie in thedisciplines that study language(s), but in those that study the relations of powerwithin and between nations. The position of the United States as the superpowerand its economic and cultural dissimilarities with Mexico make the latter avulnerable and fragile partner. In spite of the strong commercial ties betweenMexico and the United States, the relationship between them is unequal and

asymmetrical. In order to undertake a mutual enterprise, speakers of imperiallanguages have to redefine their roles; otherwise, they are going to lose credibil-ity in the eyes of the masses they are to convince of their own ideology (Hidalgo,1994).

In the eraof globalisation, nations and individuals believe thata knowledge ofEnglish is one of the keys to a more prosperous life. Indeed, there is sufficientevidence that Mexicans have invested personal resources in the acquisition andlearning of English after WorldWar II (Hidalgo etal., 1996). Their agenda of bilin-gualism is not complete, but is permanently in progress, inasmuch as Mexicansare continually becoming bilingual. The belief that English is a valuable asset

because it is one of the languages of the global community is strong, and it isreflected in the paid advertisement of English courses in major Mexican televi-sion networks. This attitude is coupled with the promotion of English for educa-tional purposes in the recent campaigns for the Presidency of Mexico. Such noveldevelopments are not only stunning but unprecedented. The evidence indicat-ing that Mexicans and Mexican Americans have been espousing the cause of

bilingualism is overwhelming.

Finally, thosewho inhabit the border regions have also been constructingnewidentities in reaction to external pressures and processes of exclusion andconstruction of otherness in a complex scenario, a dynamic third space created

by the continuous transnational circulation of people (Gutirrez, 1999). Thecultural traitsof the new socialsite are gauged by the groups that are directly orindirectly affected by the mere existence of the third space, which is perceived as

being ambiguous because the hegemonic groups have made it ambiguous. Thisascribed ambiguity is in itself an impediment to access the cultural beliefs of theother groups. Whereas the completion of language acquisition and languagelearning on the part of all groups is beyond question, the understanding ofculture and identity is disputable. The type of vernacular bilingualism spontane-ously generated in the area (described at the onset of this paper) is not the chal-lenge to cross-cultural or multicultural understanding, nor is it theunimaginative programme of biliteracy advanced by the Anglophone majority.The first step of the real challenge is to move from bilingualism and biliteracy to

biculturalism through the teaching of culture and the learning of culture beforeeven attempting to teach or learn the target language. The second step in a

programme of bilingualism andbiculturalismshould be the discussionof stereo-



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types with the purpose of attenuating them, if not eliminating them. The finalstep should be the inclusion of native speakers of the groups in conflict in thesame programme of foreign language learning. The implementation of bilin-gual, biliterate and bicultural policies for all of those concerned should help toease the anxieties and fears generated in regions where ancestral frictions

become unsurmountable barriers to effective communication. The patterns of bilingualism and attitudes towards speakers of languages of the region arecurrentlyextending to the US interior due, in part, to the NAFTA. In this way, theUS interior is beginning to display traits that used to be exclusive to the USMexico-Border.

Obliterating cultural barriers as though they were trade barriers will becomethe most onerous task of partners that have worked for 150 years under basicprinciples of inequality. In anticipation of the millions of Spanish speakers that

are going to live, work,and receive educationin the United States in the course ofthe twenty-first century, the English-speaking superpower and major leader ofglobalisation will have to put to a test an unprecedented exercise in culturaldemocracy by opening public spaces to the Spanish language. This will convertLSR into RLS (stages 3 through 1). In sum, the declaration that former PresidentClinton made on 20 October 1994, will be challenged by the many millions ofSpanish speakers expected in US soil in the next five decades. No other country[but the United States] is so well-positioned to move into the twenty-first centuryto live in a global society that is more peaceful and more secure no one (Presi-dent Clinton, cited in Crawford, 1997b: 3).

CorrespondenceAny correspondence should be directed to Professor Margarita Hidalgo,

Department of Spanish and Portuguese, San Diego State University, San Diego,CA 92182-7703, USA ([email protected]).

Note

1. The students who participated in the fieldwork reported in 27 were the following:(2) Amy Bryant and Delia de Anda; (3) Matthew Mercado and Oscar Padilla;(4) Hctor Ortega and John Cox; (5) Marcos Sotelo and Rosa Delia Gonzlez; (6) BrianDeyo; (7) Luz Mara Pea.

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Christian, D. (1994) Two-way BilingualEducation: Students Learning Through Two Languages.

(Educational Practice Report 12). Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.Crawford, J. (1997a) The campaign against Proposition 227: A post mortem. BilingualResearch Journal 21 (1).

Crawford, J. (1997b) Best Evidence: Research Foundations of the Bilingual Education Act.Washington, DC: National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education.

Fishman, J.A. (1991) Reversing Language Shift. Theoretical and Empirical Foundations of Assistance to Threatened Languages. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

Fishman, J.A. etal. (1984)The Rise and Fall of the Ethnic Revival: Perspectiveson Language andEthnicity. Berlin: Mouton.

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preliminary findings. In L. Elas-Olivares (ed.). Spanish in the U.S. Setting: Beyond theSouthwest (pp. 167180).Rosslyn, VA:National Clearinghouse forBilingual Education.

Gutirrez, D.G. (1999) Migration, emergent ethnicity, and the third space: The shiftingpolitics of nationalism in Greater Mexico. Journal of American History 86 (2), 481517.

Hidalgo, M. (1993a,August) Subjunctive use and sociopsychological variables: A sampleof Hispanics from southern California. X International Congress of Applied Linguistics.Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam.

Hidalgo, M. (1993b) The dialectics of language maintenance and language loyalty inChula Vista, Ca.: A two-generation study. In A. Roca and J. M. Lipski (eds) Spanish inthe U.S.: Language Contact and Diversity (pp. 4771). Berlin: Mouton.

Hidalgo, M. (1993c) Language problems of the northern Mexican frontier: Fundamentalconcepts for their study. In H. Polkinhorn, R. Reyes and G. Trujillo (eds). Open Signs:Language and Society on the United States-MexicoBorder(pp.124). San Diego: BinationalPress.

Hidalgo, M. (1994, February) A redefinition of sociolinguistic roles and identities: AfterNAFTA. Third Annual Conference on Ibero-American Language and Culture.

Hispanic Language and Ethnic Identity. The University of New Mexico,Albuquerque, N.M.Hidalgo, M. (1995)Language and ethnicity in the taboo region: The U.S.-Mexico border.

International Journal of the Sociology of Language114, 2942.Hidalgo, M. (1996) Criterios normativos e ideologa lingstica: Rechazo y aceptacin del

espaol de los Estados Unidos. In C. Colombi and F. Alarcn (eds). La Enseanza delEspaol a Hispanohablantes: Teora y Prctica (pp. 109120). New York: D.C. Heath.

Hidalgo, M. (1998, May) Language shift reversal in the U.S. Southwest: A conceptual andresearch challenge, Part I. Language in the 21st Century . Center for Research andDocumentation of World Language Problems, University of Hartford, West Hartford,

CT.Hidalgo, M. (1999, June) Language shift reversal in the U.S. Southwest: A conceptual andreseach challenge, Part II. Language in the 21st Century . Whitney Humanities Center,Yale University, New Haven, CT.

Hidalgo, M., Cifuentes, B. and Flores, J.A. (1996) The position of English in Mexico:19401993. In A. Conrad, J.A. Fishman and A. Rubal-Lpez (eds) Post-ImperialEnglish:19401990 Status Change in Former British and American Colonies and Spheres of Influence(pp. 113138). Berlin: Mouton.

Holloway, C.E. (1997) Dialect Death: The Case of Brule Spanish(Studies in Bilingualism 13).Amsterdam: Johns Benjamin.

Jaramillo, J.A. (1995) The passive legitimization of Spanish. A macrosociolinguistic studyof a quasi-border. Tucson, Arizona. InternationalJournal of the Sociologyof Language114,6791.

Magee, M. (1999a, June 2) Schools aim for biliteracy. Bilngual education is beingrevamped for consistency. The San Diego-Union Tribune (pp. B1, B2).

Magee, M. (1999b,June 2) Kindergarteners learn to speak Spanish in experimental effort.The San Diego Union-Tribune (p. B3).

San Diego Association of Governments (1997, September) Info: Population and HousingEstimates. San Diego: San Diego Association of Governments.

San Diego Association of Governments (1999, March) Info: San Diego Region. Demographicand Economic Characteristic. San Diego: San Diego Association of Governments.

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Appendix BThe Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (GIDS) implies that the socio-

economic space of a speech community has been disrupted to different degrees.Therefore, the higher the rating assigned on the scale, the lower the

intergenerationalcontinuityandmaintenance prospectsof a network or commu-nity. This model can be examined in eight stages.

(8) There are vestigialusers of the ethnic language and are socially isolated.Thestructures of the minority language (ML) are so deteriorated that have to bere-assembled from the mouths and memories of the speakers.

(7) Users of the ML are a socially integrated and ethnolinguistically active butthe adult population can no longer contribute demographically to thenumber of ML users, because they are beyond child-bearing age.


Appendix A: States Ranked by Hispanic Population (1999)State Estimated Hispanic

populationChange (1990-1999)

%1. California 10,459,616 35.82. Texas 6,045,430 39.33. New York 2,660,685 20.24. Florida 2,334,403 48.35. Illinois 1,276,193 41.16. Arizona 1,084,250 57.57. New Jersey 1,027,277 37.48. New Mexico 708,407 22.39. Colorado 603,582 42.3

Total 26,199,84310. Massachusetts 390,947 36.011. Washington 376,664 75.512. Pennsylvania 326,218 40.413. Nevada 304,364 144.614. Connecticut 279,164 31.015. Michigan 275,849 36.816. Virginia 266,228 66.017. Georgia 239,566 119.918. Oregon 212,870 88.919. Maryland 199,156 59.220. Ohio 184,902 32.421. N. Carolina 175,707 128.922. Indiana 153,960 55.823. Utah 150,699 78.124. Kansas 148,479 58.80825. Wisconsin 140,235 50.426. Oklahoma 136,634 58.6

Total 3,961,642


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(6) The ML is the normal language of informal, spoken interactionbetween andwithin all three generations, with the majority language being reserved formatters of greater formality. The family, the neighbourhood, and thecommunity are the core of this stage.

(5) Institutions and public agencies are preoccupied with the protection of theoral realisation of the ML by providing it with a modicum of literacy, sincethis facilitates inter-individual and inter-network communication and goalattainment. It is the most difficult phase of reversing language shift.

(4) The ML is used as a co-medium in those schools attended by minority chil-dren; the ML is funded and self-supported by minority community funds.Minority children receive the education that is desirable for the majorityauthority and the normal medium of compulsory education is the majoritylanguage. Theseschoolsareknown as type 4a schools.Therearealsotype 4b

schools that provide a ML component but these schools are entirely fundedwith taxpayers money. Type 4b schools make the minority populationdependent on themajority-controlled funds. This dependency patternleadsaway from reversing language shift rather than toward it.

(3) The use of the ML in the lower work sphere involves interaction betweenmajority and minority members. Some of the latter may control certainindustries, products, or areas of specialisation. In a minority-controlledenterprise thatserves themajority,minorities mayconduct their activities inthe ML. When the businessmen of the majority are serving the local minor-ity public, reversing language shift efforts must be oriented to requestingthe service in the ML. Localquasi-governmental offices (banks, post offices,registry offices, small claim courts,health clinics) canbe influenced to movein this direction.

(2) The ML is used in the lower governmental services and mass media but notin the higher spheres of either. Reversing language shift efforts can seize themost powerful and the most central institutions and processes of thecommunity, which are normally under majority control.Local agencies and

services in the ML neighbourhoods should be urged to operate bilinguallyusing whatever language is preferred by the citizens whom they are serv-ing.

(1) This Stage represents the arrival of the pursuit of cultural autonomy forthose who have dreamed of attaining the ML language via the ML. Whenthe ML is recognised as the co-language of its region, it becomes associatedwith the highest educational, occupational, and media activities there, butits spokesmen and representatives become responsible for planning,conducting and evaluating such activities.

Source: J.A. Fishman (1991) Reversing Language Shift. Theoretical and Empirical Foundations of Assistance to Threatened Languages. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.


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